1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to parking brake mechanisms.
2. Description of the Related Art
It is known to provide powered vehicles such as lawn and garden tractors with parking brake mechanisms. One type of parking brake mechanism provides a control that the operator must engage while depressing a brake pedal. A linkage coupled with the control will then act to block or prevent the brake pedal mechanism from returning to an unbraked position, and the vehicle thereby assumes a parked mode. Many such mechanisms require relatively numerous parts and are therefore relatively costly to manufacture and assemble.
Many such parking mechanisms do not prevent the vehicle from being shifted into a parking mode when the vehicle is being driven, or do not prevent the vehicle from being shifted into a driven mode when the parking brake is actuated. Prior art mechanisms that do accomplish these preventive functions often require separate linkage mechanisms that are relatively complex and require a large number of parts, thereby undesirably increasing the cost to manufacture and assemble the vehicle.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a vehicle such as a lawn and garden tractor with a parking brake feature that requires a relatively low number of parts. It would be desirable for such a mechanism to prevent the vehicle from being shifted into a driven mode when the brake mechanism is blocked in an engaged or parked mode, and to prevent the brake from being shifted to the parked mode when the vehicle is in a driving mode.